Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2021 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

@jack_rix editor@bbctopgearmagazine.com Retro is like spilled couscous these days, it’s flippin’ everywhere. Retro sweets, retro clothes, retro dogs, retro Netflix shows, retro burgers, retro furniture… and endless retro cars. From on the nose modern reimaginations like the Countach LPI 800-4 and Fiat 500, to more subtle DNA extractions like the new Ford Bronco (via the boom in restomods that take an old car as a starting point, and bend the rules from there), we can’t get enough of four-wheeled stuff dunked in nostalgia and rolled in rose-tinted glitter. So what is it about retro, whether heavily smothered or sparingly applied, that’s so universally appealing? We all like to think we’re shrewd operators, capable of analysing a car’s future depreciation trajectory, usefulness in any given situation and real world running costs…

There’s nothing wrong with cheap, unpretentious urban transportation. And, give 2000’s Perodua Kenari its due, it was nothing if not very cheap and very unpretentious. Based on the Daihatsu Move kei car, the Kenari was, for its size, quite practical, on account of boasting the precise proportions, and indeed dimensions, of an actual shoebox. It wouldn’t cost you much in fuel, not least because all your family and friends would politely turn down the offer of a lift. And you didn’t need to worry about a big repair bill in the event of a shunt, mostly because it was impossible to tell which bits had actually been damaged. All good, then. The only teeny, tiny issue was… oh dear Lord would you just look at it. Wearing an expression that…

Alright, so the world has spent the best part of two years being turned upside down in ways none of us ever expected. But what has all this global turmoil meant, I hear you ask, for the watch market? When the first lockdowns came, the industry was worried, like we all were. When factories closed, of course production slowed down. But now that business has for a while been cranking back towards full speed, it looks like the pandemic may even, dare we say it, have been good for business. Here are three silver linings in the COVID cloud. 1. A boost in demand. Nobody really needs a watch, let alone a collection of watches. So you’d think that as tough times hit, people would cut back on luxuries and…

F1 2021 arrives at a time when the sport itself is still picking its way through the global pandemic and as a result three new circuits, Imola, Portimao and Jeddah, are coming as free downloads later in the year. What we have right now, though, is Braking Point, a new story mode that attempts to replicate the soap opera we’ve come to expect from Netflix’s Drive To Survive. It’s hardly Citizen Kane at 200mph but it’s engaging enough to propel you through five or so hours of objective-based scenarios. Arguably the best new feature is a two-player online career, so long as you’re lucky enough to have a mate who doesn’t slip into a protective coma when you start talking about tyre strategies. We also love Real Season Start, which…

01 Porsche 911 GT3 Touring The wing atop the engine of Porsche’s hardcore 911 has been growing steadily bigger for two decades now. That was until the success of the limited run 911 R prompted Weissach to offer a version that ditched the fixed rear wing for just a hint of a retro ducktail. 02 Jaguar XE SV Project 8 Touring Jaguar liked Porsche’s idea so much, it shamelessly copied it – 15 of the planned 300 examples of its 600bhp supercharged Project 8 ditched the boot-mounted wing, but saw their 200mph top speed pegged back to 186mph as a safety measure due to reduced downforce. 03 Lamborghini Murciélago LP670-4 SV Little known fact: the hardcore run-out special Murciélago didn’t have to be specified with its famous rear wing. For those who wanted…

So you need a second car to act as the family runaround, and because you care about plastic in the ocean and furry animals, it needs to be electric. It also needs to shout about that fact, because what’s the point in doing something good for the world if your neighbours don’t know about it? Oh, and it needs to be cool, because to accept a compromise on range you’re going to have to really love it. Luckily, both of these cars represent fantastic pieces of design. The Fiat 500 instantly catches the eye thanks to its recognisable shape and love-it-or-hate-it rose gold paint, but get up closer and you’ll realise this is far from an old 500 with some batteries in it. There’s not a single part here that…

£101,220 FOR Commendably silly, masses of V8 character AGAINST Pricey, mpg figures in the mid-teens The new Defender’s programme director Stuart Frith recently told TG that a V8 wasn’t in the product plan when the project began eight years ago, but the team built a couple of mules early on and in the end it was just too good an opportunity to miss. And boy are we glad of that. Officially this is badged the P525. You’ll recognise the engine – it’s JLR’s familiar supercharged 5.0-litre unit that makes 518bhp and 461lb ft of torque here. That power is sent to all four wheels and means that the long-wheelbase 110 can do 0–62mph in 5.4 seconds. LR has toughened up the Defender’s chassis to cope with the extra grunt –…

£26,465 FOR Hybrid stuff works well, some interesting ideas here AGAINST Ride needs some improving, sometimes sluggish Toyota is a bit stubborn – got there first with all that hybrid malarkey, to be fair, but a bit slow on the uptake with some of the latest automotive fashions – electric cars, stylish tiny SUVs, that sort of thing. Still nothing electric, but this new, higher Yaris hopes to fill a gap in the range as it must surely be bleeding sales to taller, less practical, but more fashionable cars. Cross? Must be furious. The Yaris Cross looks alright for what it is – it’s got a sort of manga Volvo XC40 thing going on with its bluff front and rear and even the squared wheelarches have a first-gen RAV4 vibe.…

VOLVO V60 RECHARGE PLUG-IN HYBRID T6 AWD £46,130 FOR A glorious way to travel if you prioritise comfort AGAINST It’s a big two-tonne bus that feels its weight The current-gen Volvo V60 is a good-looking car, isn’t it? Plug-in hybrid power doesn’t change that, and suits the big Swede. You get up to 36 miles of EV range and a decent turn of pace from the combined powertrains, with the electric motor on the rear axle providing 4WD. It’s pricey versus rivals and you’ll feel the weight of the batteries under braking, but the interior is a wonderful place to be and Volvo does seats better than anyone. GP MORGAN PLUS FOUR MY22 £64,995 FOR Subtle model year tweaks fix some annoying flaws AGAINST It’s still a car that requires…

There comes a time in life when some sentimentality or nostalgia is surely inevitable. Not if you’re Marcello Gandini. Here he sits in the atrium of his splendid house – a former abbey, which he converted himself, obviously – in the hills near the northern Italian powerhouse of Turin. He’s 83 now, a spry, elegant man lately in need of a stick to get about. But his mind remains as sharp as a tack, his views often mischievous, unconventional and philosophical. One of the true legends of car design, whatever status the world has conferred on him is lightly worn. “Generally speaking, a car that everyone used to like isn’t liked any more, or it’s liked a lot less,” Gandini notes, a cigarette perched delicately between slender fingers. “The Countach,…

1959 ASTON MARTIN DB4 GT The standard DB4 already had a rather lovely bonnet scoop, but 1959’s lighter, refreshed GT needed more air into its 3.7-litre straight-six 1970 PLYMOUTH ROAD RUNNER Plymouth’s brilliantly named Air Grabber bonnet received a refreshed design in 1970 to this vacuum operated, shark-toothed scoop 1970 AMC REBEL ‘THE MACHINE’ In the same year, AMC stuck a rev counter on the back of the massive ram-air intake attached to its Rebel muscle car. Because why not? 2004 SUBARU IMPREZA WRX STI King of the modern scoops, we reckon the ‘Blobeye’ WRX STI had the most iconic bonnet addendum of all the Imprezas 2006 MINI COOPER S WORKS GP When BMW-owned Mini launched its first hot hatch special, it made the already iconic little bonnet scoop the…

REPORT 4 £33,340/£36,140/£348 WHY IT’S HERE Does BMW build a better Golf GTI? DRIVER Vijay Pattni PLASTERED ALONG THE REAR side sills of our long-term BMW 128ti are bright red ‘ti’ decals. I’ve already noted how the 128’s target audience might not necessarily care nor appreciate the revival of a badge that BMW holds dear to its heart. But what I haven’t is the manifestation of that badging. Does the 128ti need additional ‘ti’ badging plastered across the sides? Do the badges have to look like they came from the Nineties? Does it need those bright red air intake accents up front and at the back just behind the rear wheels? Spoiler alert: no, it really doesn’t. It’s a minor point but ruins an otherwise quite lovely spec (‘mineral’ grey…

GOODBYE £34,545 OTR/£34,545 as tested/£406 pcm WHY IT’S HERE Does this EV to do the job of a normal good value family car? DRIVER Paul Horrell THE BEST ASPECT OF HALF A YEAR IN THE SOUL? NOTHING ABOUT IT drove me bananas. Which sounds like faint praise. But just look at all the largely great cars that occasionally, or frequently, send us into paroxysms. We have a section of TG Garage devoted to these infelicities: What were they thinking? So this is point one about the Soul. It never troubled the compilers of WWTT – no small achievement. As a standard-size compact slightly crossover, it’s on the money. Enough space, slightly raised driving position. The steering might be numb but it’s accurate, and a multi-link rear suspension and alert powertrain…

REPORT 3 £158,000 OTR/£185,500 as tested/£1,899pcm WHY IT’S HERE It’s the car to save Aston Martin – is it good enough? DRIVER Adam Waddell THE FIRST TWO REPORTS FOR OUR LONG-TERM ASTON DBX SAW OUR recently departed editorial director Charlie Turner spec the car with input from Aston’s design guru Marek Reichman, then help with the build at the factory. But it falls to me to deliver the first report on living with the DBX. That’s right, I’m driving a £185k, 180mph car built by a journalist. The quality control people wouldn’t sign off unless they were confident it was screwed together properly, and all seems as it should be in that respect. First impression on the road is that the DBX is massive – it feels bigger than a…

01 Renault 4 A proper people’s car, like the Citroen 2CV or VW Beetle, that remained in production for some 33 years between 1961 and 1994. Over eight million were produced and sold all over the world. Due for an EV revival sometime in the next few years… 02 Renault 5 So too is the Renault 5. One of the first modern era superminis, launched a few years before the VW Polo and Ford Fiesta, for many years it was France’s bestselling car. Spawned mad, mid-engined Renault 5 Turbo homologation special. 03 Renault Megane Renault’s crack at the Volkswagen Golf and Ford Focus. The ordinary ones have never been top of the class, but the RenaultSport versions have always been special things. Some of the most focused, hardcore road-going hot…

For 20 years Carlos Ghosn, CEO of the Renault Nissan Alliance, ruled the car universe. And he was famous. In Japan his face adorned bento boxes and Manga comics. A poll even revealed that most Japanese woman saw him as the perfect father of their children. He had homes in Paris, Amsterdam, Rio, Lebanon and Tokyo and had a compensation of 13 million euros a year. And then it went wrong. In the most spectacular way possible. Arrested on charges of financial impropriety, he spent 13 months in and out of Kosuge, one of Japan’s most infamous prisons. And then his story took the weirdest of turns as he skipped bail, escaping in the most audacious way. From global car superstar, he’s now the world’s most famous fugitive. It all…

“In a world that has become increasingly more digital, we were yearning for a time machine that could transport us back to the analogue Eighties.” The words of Legende Automobiles as it unveils this, the Turbo 3. It’s a reborn Renault 5 Turbo, and although just a render for now, it may be one of the most cohesive reinventions yet. It’s designed to reverse some of the cost-cutting measures Renault made for the second-gen Turbo 2, which brought it closer to the price bracket Renaults would usually inhabit. With the blank-cheque culture of restomodding, though, the 5 can be ramped right back up to the max once more. The source of the turbocharged engine is as yet unspecified, but we’re told it makes 400bhp. The suspension matches that of a…

When a steering wheel looks this good, do you even need a car to attach it to? This is the glorious, retro-inspired Black Edition of Momo’s iconic Prototipo, and we might just have to buy one to stick on the wall at TG Towers. Now that’s what we’d call art. Milan-based Momo is well known for its fashionable yet functional wheels – the Prototipo’s lightweight but thick-rimmed design has barely changed since the first-generation appeared in the late Sixties. Plus, if it’s good enough for the Porsche 917, it’s probably good enough to inspire us lot to do a bit of writing… Momo.com; $395…

1 ASTON WON’T BUILD MANY Just 85 Spiders will make it into production, with deliveries expected to begin mid 2022. They’ll join the 150 coupes and 40 non-road-legal AMR Pros to make a grand total of 275 cars. No price yet for the Spider but if you’re expecting change from £3m, you may be disappointed. 2 IT HAS NO ROOF, DUH Yep, the Spider is great news for all those who put a deposit down on Aston’s £2.5m hard-topped hypercar, only to realise they couldn’t fit in Adrian Newey’s snug cabin. Chopping the roof off does seem at odds with the Valkyrie’s obsession with aero, but Aston claims the extra headroom makes it even more like an F1 car. Can’t argue with that. 3 THE GULLWING DOORS ARE GONE Clearly the Valkyrie’s…

£127,820 FOR Mesmerising engine and handling, low key bodywork AGAINST Is it perhaps too polished? Getting hold of one Have the manual. There are plenty of other choices to make when buying a GT3 Touring, but that’s the only one that really matters. It puts you more in touch with this incredible flat-six engine, makes you think more, be more involved, use different parts of this engine’s strident, far reaching range. Cracking shift, too. And besides, the pull of the PDK paddles is a bit soft. Just bear in mind you won’t save a penny. All GT3s, regardless of gearbox or whether you choose the Touring package, cost £127,820. Let’s put money to one side now, as these things are oversubscribed already. Touring package, that’s the key here. It’s a…

£65,915 FOR Unexpectedly rapid, seamless PHEV integration AGAINST No seven-seat option, four-cylinder a little grumbly On the outside at least, the Defender P400e looks almost identical to its combustion-engined siblings. The only giveaway to its electrified nature is the newly sprouted charging flap on the left rear flank. Yep, it’s a full plug-in hybrid. A 2.0-litre turbo four-cylinder petrol engine produces 296bhp under its own steam, but it’s paired with a 105kW electric motor and when both work together there’s a maximum of 398bhp and 472lb ft of torque. Very healthy. In fact, in a 0–62mph sprint it’ll only be two tenths off the 110 V8. The Defender’s standard eight-speed auto is present again, and the P400e is permanently in four-wheel-drive mode whether you’re running on electric power alone, a…

Signs of ageing include (so I’m told) gratefully acknowledging a dismal July rain shower “will be good for the garden”, noting that footballers, policepeople and – eventually – politicians are getting younger, and being astounded at what now constitutes a school trip. My dad would have considered a half day visit to a local paint tin lid factory as enthralling as a Solo-guided tour of the Millennium Falcon. Thanks to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award I was able to trudge up and down Scafell Pike in dense fog powered by a hearty breakfast of tepid boil-in-the-bag beans and Kendal mint cake. But kids these days, I tell you, they don’t know they’re born. There are 40 of them screeching around the shores of their local caravan park’s private lake. Year…

“FINDING AN ALTO WORKS HAS BECOME EVEN HARDER THAN THE GT-R NEXT TO IT” It wasn’t enough to just complete the task, it had to be finished with all golds. Partly for your own OCD and partly because it’d reward you with a better car at the end. Ivan Pavlov wasn’t on the development team for Gran Turismo, but there’s a strong chance one of his distant cousins was. Because the rage and frustration felt while trying to complete the in-game licences would usually result in both PlayStation controller and TV, plus anything else in the near vicinity, having their structural integrity compromised. At least this level of virtual conditioning wouldn’t leave a series of long-lasting effects on someone who first played it back in 1997. Which is exactly why…

REMEMBERING RETRO GAMING THE CLASSICS Twisted Metal was released for the original PlayStation console mere weeks after Destruction Derby, but rather than relying on anything as rudimentary as head-on collisions, this car combat game featured vehicles bristling with more weaponry than an Apache gunship. With a plot that sounds like a straight-to-DVD Saw spin-off, Twisted Metal takes place in the far flung future year of 2005, where a mysterious figure named Calypso, who lives beneath the streets of LA, organises a deadly vehicular combat tournament. What that means in practice is driving around in circles, peppering each other with rockets and machine gun fire in a sort of clumsy, ultra-violent automotive ballet. Endlessly entertaining in split-screen multiplayer, it was the cast of bizarre, horror movie characters that gave Twisted Metal its unique…

REPORT 5 SEAT LEON Unlock the Leon, and onto the ground below the wing mirrors it beams a blinding ‘puddle light’ bearing the cheery exclamation above. There is no way to turn this puddle light off, or change its display. Far be it from me to suggest that not every Leon owner wants a ‘Hola!’ bat signal, all the time, but… maybe not every Leon owner wants a ‘Hola!’ bat signal, all the time? SP REPORT 5 PORSCHE TAYCAN First proper long-haul duties for the Taycan – a trip to Cornwall. Indicated range based on my driving style: 241 miles. Destination: 232 miles. Ah. Decide to split the trip, but arriving at the Ionity station I discover there’s a half-an-hour queue. Not ideal, still, plenty of time to make small…

GOODBYE £29,995 OTR/£34,375 as tested/£396pcm WHY IT’S HERE Does this hot hatch genuinely channel the spirit of the WRC? DRIVER Ollie Marriage I DIDN’T SO MUCH LIVE WITH THE GR YARIS AS CONSUME IT IN HITS. And over the past eight months, I’ve realised that’s what our experience of performance cars should be. Intoxicating spikes of drama and excitement that briefly punctuate extended periods of duller, more ordinary behaviour. Name me one sports car, weighing more than a tonne and costing less than six figures, that isn’t trying to be multi-dimensional. They all are, aren’t they? They want to be your one-stop driving shop. And so they’re compromised. And as soon as you allow compromise to creep in, the first thing to suffer is the stuff you wanted the car…

The cheapest car (if you can call it a car) in Renault’s line-up is the Twizy. Prices start from just under £12,000, but bear in mind that it doesn’t qualify for the government’s plug-in car grant as it doesn’t meet the minimum range requirement of 70 miles. You’ll also have to fork out an extra £545 if you want doors. Yes, really. At the other end of the scale, the Megane RS hot hatch costs from over £33,500, and the highly tuned 300 Trophy model bumps that up above £38,000. The latter gets a Cup chassis and a limited-slip differential for improved handling, perfect for track days or for shaving a few tenths off the school run. Not long ago, Renault made a limited edition R version of the RS…

Renault has dozens of facilities across Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. It has several factories in its home market of France, a few in Spain, and others in Portugal, Slovenia, Russia, Morocco, India, South Korea, China, Brazil and Mexico, among many more. It even has a lab in Silicon Valley. In 2019 Groupe Renault – which refers to Renault and Dacia, Alpine and Lada, the other brands that it owns – sold 3,753,723 vehicles worldwide. However this figure fell by a whopping 21.3 per cent to 2,949,849 vehicles in 2020 and cost the company many, many billions; unsurprising given the impact of COVID-19.…

CITY CARS These small cars are perfect for urban life, but the trade-off is a much lower range 1. HONDA e PRICE: £28,215–£30,715 RANGE: Up to 136 miles TG’s reigning city car of the year has retro-tastic styling, but the range isn’t great. No worries – you don’t need to drive anywhere, just sit inside it. 2. MINI ELECTRIC PRICE: £26,000–£32,550 RANGE: Up to 145 miles The electric version of the home grown favourite squeezes the BMW i3’s powertrain into a familiar package. Range not massive, but the car’s still fun. 3. FIAT 500e PRICE: £20,495–£27,495 RANGE: Up to 199 miles The latest version of the 500 offers sharper looks, good value and decent range – and a parcel shelf full of soft toys shouldn’t hurt the battery too much.…

Welcome to the third stanza in Audi’s ongoing love affair with its multi-award-winning 2.5-litre 5cyl engine, and the car that’s wrapped around it. The new RS3 is now the only hot hatch to have more than four cylinders; all five kick out 395bhp and 369lb ft of torque. With launch control engaged, though, this new RS3 will do 0–62mph in 3.8 seconds – three-tenths quicker than the outgoing RS3. You still get a 7spd dual-clutcher and 4WD. Plus, there’s a torque splitter as standard; a device that does away with the rear diff, and in its place adds an electronic multi-disc clutch on each driveshaft. So each wheel gets the right amount of torque for any given situation, and one extremely fun one… Yes, most importantly, it means the new…

Imagine a company car road warrior doing 500 miles a day. Won’t they be hamstrung if they have to stop for an hour or more to charge up? Well, probably not. The days are largely gone when reps aggressively pounded the outside lane doing galactic mileages. Health and safety policies restrict their seat time, and anyway, more meetings are online now, and it’ll stay that way. And that all means average annual mileage is falling. Paul Holland is the boss of Allstar, which provides fuel cards to company drivers. He says: “We have the data to confirm that EV use is surging. With some adaptations to the way they work, companies have been able to use EVs in heavy use situations.” And that includes car drivers on long trips, he…

£45,800 FOR Looks, beautifully made, fabulous interior refinement AGAINST Drive, 2.5-litre petrol engine is vocal when pushed Genesis is Hyundai’s luxury diffusion line, a well-known quantity in its home market and the US, now tilting at the establishment in the UK and Europe. Many have tried and indeed are still trying, but Hyundai’s top brass see it as a matter of honour to lock swords with the big players. And they want to do it by being different. Last year, Genesis shifted 130,000 cars globally so the ambition is certainly not being thwarted. The G80 really does do different, an imperious looking saloon whose dropping rear roofline and cut-off tail suggest coupe-like grace in a sector populated by largely trad saloons. And it’s big, measuring 5mm shy of five metres…

£99,500 I’VE HAD MY DRIVING DEITY EXPERIENCE. OR more accurately, the new Bowler Defender Challenge has handed it to me on a plate, because while it may look intimidating with its chunky tyres, stripped out interior and bombproof underbody protection, this short wheelbase 90 rally car is a softy designed to suit drivers of all abilities. Bowler is reviving its one-make race series with this car. The Challenge first ran between 2014 and 2016, when competitors drove old Defenders with diesel engines, manual gearboxes and a tendency to roll over like submissive dogs. This all-new version is based on the monocoqued P300 Defender, so features a turbocharged four-cylinder engine that usually makes 296bhp but breathes a bit freer here thanks to a less restrictive exhaust. Major changes were avoided to…

£175,360 FOR Better brakes, more power, more dynamic, looks great AGAINST There are more Ferrari-like Ferraris, for a bit more cash It would be damning the Portofino M with faint praise to say that this is “just a facelift” of the standard Portofino – this is much more than mere lunchtime aesthetic tweaking – but yes, this is an evolution of the familiar GT/Spider convertible, bearing as it does Ferrari’s usual ‘M’ (for Modificata) suffix that denotes cars that have had a “significant boost to their performance”. It’s not so much a Portofino on steroids as much as a Portofino that’s been down the gym. Easy identifiers? The M features more aggressive intakes on the front bumper, with a new drag reducing vent on the top at wheelarch height, a…

Last time you saw a car with wobbly wheels it probably had doors falling off it and 14 men in colourful make-up climbing out the passenger side door, but the Mercedes-Benz F 400 Carving concept didn’t deploy the effect for comic value. Rather the aim, said the company at the concept’s reveal in 2001, was to test “novel dynamic handling systems”. Unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show, the F 400’s secret weapon was tilting the outside wheels up to 20 degrees on the way through a corner like a motorbike, or perhaps a skier. In fact, that was where the Carving moniker came from, nothing to do with the blade you might whip out to dice up your Sunday bird. The F 400 Carving enjoyed a 3.2-litre V6 engine under…

AN RX-8? I’VE NOT SEEN ONE OF THOSE FOR AGES. Nor had we. See, though the RX-8 was a reasonably popular choice in its heyday, since it went off sale in 2010 the little Mazda has earned itself a reputation for being tricky to keep in fine fettle. And for drinking engine oil at roughly the same rate most others consume super unleaded. Nowadays you can pick one up for next to nothing, but be careful, it’ll cost you £££s to run and maintain, and the potential for cataclysmic mechanical failure is significant. WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? The engine, which is precisely what makes this car so special. The RX-8 was the last Mazda to be equipped with a rotary engine; a technology with which Mazda has become synonymous, and that…

HELLO £74,000 OTR/£86,745 as tested/£1,260pcm WHY IT’S HERE Is BMW’s mighty M3 still the performance saloon benchmark? DRIVER Rowan Horncastle THINGS MOVE OUT OF THE NEWS CYCLE QUICKLY THESE DAYS. Doesn’t it feel like a lifetime ago that our feeds were filled with substantial scotch egg meals, the European Super League and the great M3/M4 grille controversy? People lost their minds over all three of them. But especially when they saw that BMW had slapped some fat nostrils on the benchmark performance saloon. People like me. Was I wrong? Well, having lived with a new G80 M3 Competition for a week or so now, I’ve mellowed to its face. Or become blind to it as there’s also a lot to unpack with this sixth-gen M3, which is a useful distraction.…

REPORT 5 £30,345 OTR/£32,045 as tested/£400pcm WHY IT’S HERE Does Mazda’s first EV have substance beyond gimmicky (but cool) doors? DRIVER Tom Harrison THIS JOB IS MAINLY ABOUT FINDING CREATIVE EXCUSES TO DRIVE cars you’ve always wanted to have a go in. Cars like the Mazda RX-8. Which, as you may have noticed, has the same kind of doors as “our” MX-30. Tenuous enough of a link for you? When the RX-8 was new my dad borrowed a grey one for a weekend and I distinctly remember being captivated by those doors and the noise. The doors because, well, children are easily amused (and they are cool, aren’t they?) and the noise because the RX-8’s rotary engine spins all the way up to a 9,000rpm redline. And you have to…

REPORT 3 £106,950/£107,080/£1,313 WHY IT’S HERE Is Audi’s Taycan a better all-rounder than Porsche’s? DRIVER Ollie Marriage LATE RUN HOME IN THE E-TRON GT. The matrix LED lights do their clever thing and provided the camera in the windscreen reckons the road is clear and you’re doing over 43.5mph, on come the lasers. They’re sited in the ‘X’ of the headlight, a monochromatic blue laser beam with a 450-nanometre wavelength. That passes through a phosphor converter transforming it into white light with a 5,500K colour temperature. A lot of science to be able to see further ahead on the autobahn. The claim is the lasers offer double the depth penetration of the regular lights (which still stay on), a total range of 600m. The result is amazing – the GT’s…

Renault is a French car manufacturer that was founded in 1899 by three brothers: Louis, Marcel and Fernand. Louis was an engineer who built his own prototype vehicles, and on Christmas Eve back in 1898 the 21-year-old demonstrated the potential of his ‘Voiturette’ by betting his friends it could drive up the steep Rue Lepic in Paris. He duly won the bet and managed to secure his first 12 orders that same night. Renault was born. With Marcel and Fernand looking after the business, Louis set to work on design. The original Type A was unveiled in the following June, fitted with a De Dion-Bouton engine that could muster 1hp and a top speed of 20mph. Two months later Louis and Marcel entered the vehicle into the Amateur Drivers’ Cup…

Renault has been competing in F1 for decades, so its fastest ever car is technically a Formula One car of some description. Its fastest road car, though, is undoubtedly this: the Megane RS Trophy R. It lived up to its price tag by setting the lap record at the Nürburgring for front-wheel-drive cars, clocking a time of 7mins 40.10secs around the Nordschleife, more than three seconds faster than the previous benchmark set by the Honda Civic Type R. The 1.8-litre turbo engine produced 296bhp and hit 0–62mph in 5.4 seconds on its way to a heady top speed of 163mph. Carbon ceramic brakes, carbon wheels and aerodynamic improvements also helped set it apart from the standard car. Only 30 £72,000 ’Ring-spec cars were made, with the rest of the 500-unit…

Hard to pick one, because Renault does exceptionally good concepts. The DeZir (pictured) is certainly one of its more striking efforts: the two-seater coupe was revealed at the Paris Motor Show in 2010 featuring a 150bhp, all-electric powertrain capable of 0–62mph in five seconds and 100 miles of range. On paper, anyway – sadly Renault never actually put it into production, intending it as a design exercise more than anything else. Something that did spawn a production car was the 1990 Renault Roadster Laguna, which won a design award and eventually led to the creation of the short-lived Renault Spider.…